A changing #geopolitical dramaturgy is playing out in the Persian Gulf /Middle East as its diplomatic statesmen-monarchs ( The Emir of #Kuwait and the Sultan of #Oman) pass on this year. #Israel ,#Palestine and the rumblings of the southern levant area provide sound and fury to a sick oil industry.#Rentiercapitalism is threatened by an eclectic mix of high youth unemployment, lower levels of investment in military expenditure and pressures from the pandemic on the ethnic composition of the society. Traditional power alliances are being sacrificed on the altar of pragmatism, while power cliques are reinventing new legitimacy narratives. Aspirations of nationhood and the comfort of been cocooned in ideology are trampled down on as states move towards protectionism #middleeast #society.